Making Waves
by meta-pongo
Summary: Sakura finds more than she had bargained for on her first jonin mission to the Land of Waves -
1. Chapter 1

Sakura hesitated at the foreign feel of silky hair brushing against the small of her back. She hadn't had the long hair her current henge provided since her genin days, so long ago. It was a strange yet familiar feeling, and she wasn't quite sure she liked the accompanying feelings of inadequacy and weakness it dredged up within her. She was so small and feeble then, so naive, and so utterly, hopelessly, stupidly in love wi—no. She would not allow those painful memories to fully resurface.

Shaking her head lightly as she continued determinedly down the moonlit corridor of the seaside inn she was staying at deep in the Land of Waves, Sakura quickly repopulated her mind with the most mundane details of her current mission.

She was here to obtain information about a series of attacks currently plaguing the peaceful, now-prosperous islands in the area. This mission also held somewhat of a personal challenge for Sakura, considering the last time she was in the Land of Waves was for Team 7's first C-rank mission together. This being her first solo mission as a newly-minted Jounin, the faux-brunette hoped to prove to herself that she could put her past where it belonged by methodically writing over every trace of _him_, one cherished memory at a time. She wasn't off to a very good start, Sakura thought broodingly to herself.

When Tsunade-shishou sent her on this mission with a knowing look in her eye, and told her to take as much time as she needed, Sakura had registered that this was her master's way of forcing her to take a vacation from the hospital, but she'd nevertheless accepted immediately. After all, it was one more crucial memory to cross off the list.

* * *

Sakura found herself craving a stiff drink, perched atop a barstool at the seaside bar she'd wandered to when the last one didn't provide her with any meaningful intel. She resolved to try again tomorrow night as she motioned to the bartender for something a little stronger than the water she'd been drinking all night while she worked.

Content with a pink martini in hand, not unlike the bright color of her usual hair, she tried to let her mind go blank with the soothing sound of gently crashing waves in the background. She almost succeeded, too, until a tap on her shoulder brought her back into her current, not-so-real reality.

"Uh, hi. I- I don't think I've ever seen you around here before…" Sakura was met with a pair of inquisitive blue eyes as she slowly turned to her side to meet the affronting distraction that had pulled her from her near-meditative state. "Name's Kaito," the man beamed with a smile that could light up the whole bar. "So, what brings you to Nami no Kuni?"

Sakura decided she really wasn't in the mood for any more small talk with the locals tonight and made a motion to get up and leave, but something in the way his expression downturned just the slightest as she half-stood made her reconsider her atypically standoffish demeanor.

Sighing lightly under her breath, she readjusted her seat and gave—_Wait, what did he say his name was?_—a tired half smile. The man's face instantly brightened, and she couldn't help but think that he resembled Naruto in that brief moment.

"Sa—Satsuki! My name is, eh, Satsuki." Sakura couldn't believe she had almost just told this absolute stranger her real name just because he reminded her of an old teammate for a moment. 'Maybe my drink is stronger than I thought…' she mused to herself with flushing cheeks at her near-misstep.

Kaito didn't seem to take any notice of her odd behavior, and simply beamed all the brighter as he continued to try to make conversation with the shy new face he'd found at the bar.

When Sakura finally finished her drink and made to leave with a hasty 'Nice meeting you' thrown in Kaito's general direction, she was halfway out the door already when her new acquaintance suddenly appeared beside her, holding the door open for them both to exit.

"At least let me walk you home, Satsuki. It's really not safe out there anymore with the attacks that have been going on recently." Kaito's suddenly determined and serious face made her snap her mouth shut before the ready refusal could roll off her lips. With a small, resigned nod, she followed him out into the night.

Kaito reinstated his genial small talk from before as the pair walked side-by-side down the dark, emptying side streets of the small fishing village. Sakura nodded and responded with one-word interjections, just enough to keep up the dialogue, but her focus was elsewhere.

She felt like she was being watched, no, scrutinized even; the weight of the feeling was almost palpable on her skin. She discreetly scanned her surroundings as they walked, and tried to subtly probe the scene with her chakra for any discrepancies. Nothing.

Now almost visibly perplexed as the uncomfortable feeling compounded on her psyche with no evidence of any real threat, Sakura almost didn't notice as she and a blissfully-oblivious Kaito nearly walked clear past her inn.

"Oh, uh, this is me." Sakura sheepishly interjected as she stopped near the inn's door. Kaito turned abruptly and gave her his most dazzling smile yet as he proudly proclaimed that he'd fulfilled his mission of getting his charge safely home.

"Yeah, well, thanks, although you really didn't have to…" She smiled awkwardly as she turned to go inside and bid him farewell [forever]. Sakura was too stunned to react when the man grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a warm embrace. "I hope I see you around again soon, Satsuki. Goodnight."

Sakura just stood there, blinking slowly, as Kaito vanished back into the night, managing to get a meek 'You too…' out before he was completely out of earshot. When she looked around again after he was gone, the feeling of being watched from before was gone, replaced with a slight chill in the breeze that skirted over her exposed skin and urged her to get inside before the steadily-brewing rains arrived.

Outside, a bolt of lightning struck close by just as Sakura shut the door to her bedroom, illuminating the dark room for a moment and briefly giving her the same chill that the suddenly cool wind had earlier that night.

* * *

Sakura rolled over to face the early morning light filtering through her blinds, lavender under-eye circles accentuating her jade-green irises, but also sorely indicating her lack of restful sleep.

She'd had all sorts of unsettling dreams during the night. Perhaps the most jarring of them all occurred shortly after she'd first drifted to sleep, when she awoke suddenly in a panic just as another powerful bolt of lightning struck the churning ocean outside her french doors.

The sheer voile curtains covering half-open windows twisted violently in the gale-force wind now rushing into her bedroom as a tropical storm raged outside. For a split second, they perfectly framed a pair of furiously glowing red eyes just above the railing of her balcony. Sakura blinked and they were gone.

That same pair of distinctive, malevolent red eyes plagued her dreams for the rest of the night.

* * *

Sakura unhurriedly made her way down the teeming main village street in search of some produce she could cook for dinner. She'd decided to take the day for herself earlier that morning, realizing just how exhausted she was after she fell asleep at her kitchen counter while waiting for her tea to steep.

There wasn't a cloud in the cerulean sky as the disguised kunoichi adjusted her wide-brimmed straw hat to lie a little lower on her head. In this heat, she was thankful she'd elected to pull her requisite annoyingly long brown hair back into a low braid that still reached past the arch of the small of her back, until, that is, her head was yanked swiftly backwards by it.

Sakura furiously whipped around to face the source of the pain now pulsating in her neck, one hand gripping her still-concealed kunai knife. She was met with a pair of tear-stained, saucer-wide eyes staring up at her in horror.

"You- you're not my m-mommy!" The small child let out a distressed wail and ran off in the opposite direction, only to be scooped up by a woman sporting the same brown, braided hair as Sakura's henge. She quickly released her grip of the kunai and mentally chastised herself for her over-reaction to a civilian child that posed zero threat to her.

'I suppose I am still a little on-edge after last night,' Sakura mumbled to herself as she swiftly continued on her way, vowing to allow herself to indulge in some much-needed relaxation time when she got back to her inn.

* * *

Sitting poolside with a cold, fruity drink and the most pompous piece of literature she could find—an over-the-top romance novel that would put even Kakashi-sensei's Icha Icha books to shame—Sakura let out an exasperated sigh as she felt herself succumbing to boredom after only one short hour of 'relaxing'.

"Oh, honey, no. It's a sin to look so glum on vacation."

Sakura looked up and met the gaze of a gorgeous blonde woman lounging in a chaise adjacent to her own, oversized sunglasses lowered down the bridge of her nose as she looked Sakura over. She looked to be only a few years older than Sakura, and somewhat resembled an ultra-cultured, tanned version of her best friend, Ino.

Blinking slowly, Sakura flitted a fake smile in her direction and began, "I'm just a little tired today, that's all. It's more of—"

"I can see right through that flimsy excuse, babe. People who are 'just a little tired' don't sulk through romance novels like that," the smug blonde purred with an equally feline smile. "Now tell me who the boy is that's got you all bent out of shape."


	2. Chapter 2

Sakura was probably staring for longer than what most people would deem socially acceptable, but she had a feeling the object of her current dumbfounded gaze did not fall under the categorization of 'most people.'

"Uhhh- I.. um, I- well…" she eloquently began, "Is it really that obvious?!" Sakura decided to humor the glamorous, very blunt blonde woman that had decided to take an interest in her questionable pool-side literary endeavors.

"Yes. Yes, it really is," she deadpanned. "Now spill."

Quickly realizing that outright lying wasn't likely to work with this girl, Sakura opted for a version of the truth. "There's… ah, definitely this boy from my past that I'm still not over yet," she sheepishly acquiesced. "But I'm trying to forget him. That's partly why I'm here, on vacation."

The blonde seemed to accept her suspect's nebulous admission, nodding sagely before declaring, "Uh huh. That settles it then. You're to meet me at this very spot tonight at 6 for a girls' night. We're going to go forget about your mystery man from the past." She gave Sakura a smirk and a quick once-over before adding, "Wear a dress—a little black dress. You've got a killer figure."

Sakura just nodded and gave a feeble "Sounds good!" as her new friend recovered her designer pool bag from behind her chaise and made to walk toward the gates. "Oh, my name's Koneko, by the way," she casually tossed over her shoulder in a similar fashion to her bag.

* * *

Sakura glanced at the clock—5:45—then glanced at the floor-length mirror in her room, immediately regretting her ill-informed decision not to pack any sophisticated little black dresses like Ino had fervently instructed her to. Sakura simply hadn't planned on needing anything fancier than a few flowy sundresses for this trip.

She sighed and ran her hand through her still-pink short locks, hoping the loose, floral bohemian sundress that hit her mid-thigh would suffice for whatever upscale cocktail lounge Koneko apparently had in mind.

Sakura reinstated her henge— a version of Tsunade-shishou's own signature transformation jutsu with just a couple of tweaks, primarily to hair color and height— that made her instead appear a couple years older than she looked. The aging aspect in Sakura's case was a concerted effort to head-off the inevitable comments from strangers on how the petite kunoichi looked too young to be travelling all alone in a foreign land. She rolled her eyes at the mere thought.

Sakura hadn't bothered to mask her bright green eye color since no one in this Land of Waves should even know of her, much less expect her presence. She thought the overall look actually quite suited her, as she tilted her head back to begin gathering long brown hair into what she hoped would be a sophisticated-enough updo.

* * *

Koneko irritatedly clicked her tongue at Sakura as she observed her gingerly walk to their agreed-upon meeting spot by the pool.

"I thought I told you to wear something a little more… I don't know, risqué , didn't I!?" She chided.

Sakura briefly suspected that Ino had followed her to the Land of Waves and this Koneko character was simply her clever disguise in order to more thoroughly police her wardrobe.

"Ah… about that," Sakura sheepishly trailed, "This is kind of the shortest thing I brought with me… aside from my bathing suit."

"I see. We're definitely going to have to fix that." Koneko started back towards the inn, motioning Sakura to follow. "Luckily for you, I don't believe in packing lightly."

* * *

Sakura began to wonder just what she'd gotten herself into as she took in her newly-bestowed image in Koneko's bedroom mirror.

"Wow…"

"You can say that again!" Koneko smugly chirped from the background, wearing a smile reminiscent of Dr. Frankenstein marvelling his newly-created monster.

Sakura tilted her head sideways trying to process how a dress and some make-up could pull off a better henge than the actual transformation jutsu itself. The silky black fabric was tight in all the right places, with a plunging open back formed from the excess fabric that cascaded over her shoulders like a waterfall, pooling at the small of her back.

Koneko tossed a strappy pair of white and gold heels her way to complete the Bond-Girl-esque look. "You'll need these where we're going."

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, Sakura found herself in the midst of a shockingly high-profile crowd in a glitzy cocktail lounge that seemed incredibly out of place in the modest Land of Waves that she remembered.

"What's going on here…?" Sakura asked a giddy Koneko who was busy appeasing the bartender sweet-talking her as he made their drinks.

"Oh, it's just some diplomatic summit or something. My daddy's here for work and I always accompany him when the location is warm and sunny! The free drinks at these things help too…" Koneko continued on but Sakura wasn't really listening anymore. She was trying to pinpoint the source of the interesting conversation she'd just overheard regarding the success of 'our so-called bandits' in the area.

Sakura zeroed in on a tall figure leaning against a table that she recognized as one of the top advisors to the Water Daimyō himself. She almost couldn't believe her luck. The man was clearly already more than a few drinks in and now openly bragging about his diplomatic mission to the Land of Waves.

Sakura simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to gather potentially sensitive information that could prove useful not only to her current mission, but also to the Land of Fire down the road, so she excused herself from Koneko and her bartender to make her way over to the inebriated diplomat, with a stiff drink of her own in hand.

'Alright, Satsuki, time to go to work,' she internally hyped herself up as she closed in on her target, expertly feigning a wobbliness in her steps that seemed to suggest she'd been drinking a bit too heavily. "Oh! I'm so-so sorry!" Sakura exclaimed as she bumped directly into the brazen diplomat, her drunk façade punctuated with a small but convincing hiccup.

"Ah, I suppose I'll let you off the hook since you didn't spill my drink!" He guffawed boisterously, steadying himself with one hand on the edge of the table and the other moving to snake around Sakura's waist. "What's a pretty little thing like you doing here unaccompanied, anyway?"

"Oh I'm here with my friend over there!" She pointed haphazardly in the general direction of the bar. "Hey, do I know you? You look sorta familiar, like, someone super important…" She baited and waited.

"Well, good eye, little lady," the older man slyly winked at her, "I'll let you in on a little secret since you noticed. I'm here on very important business from the Land of Water, sent personally by the Daimyō." He paused for full effect and Sakura wasted no time inflating his ego even further.

Seemingly satisfied with his new arm candy's response, he cockily continued, "Despite this being a now-prosperous land, it didn't used to be that way, and there is still some leftover political unrest that manifests itself rather violently from time to time."

"Like the bandit attacks that have been going on!" Sakura exuberantly exclaimed, appearing to connect the dots as if the older diplomat had just unveiled an intricate murder mystery plot.

"Exactly. You're a quick one — what did you say your name was…?"

"Oh, I'm Satsuki! I have to say, I'm sure glad that someone as smart and important as you are is taking the time to figure out who's behind these raids. It's so scary that these criminals are still out there, just waiting to attack at any time!"

"Hmm, you shouldn't have to worry your pretty little head about things like this. I'll tell you what, just between you and me, I can personally make sure you're protected from the bandits if it would make you feel better."

"You could do that, for me?!" Sakura batted her eyelashes and put on an innocent doe-eyed expression that seemed to do the trick.

"Of course! Anything for you, doll." The politician smirked as he ushered her over to a closed door guarded by a very large, intimidating man with fiery orange hair and eyes to match.

"Jūgo, get the door for us. I'll be back shortly if he comes looking for me."

The bodyguard, Jūgo, who looked like he was somewhat in pain, obliged with a curt nod and stood aside as they passed through into a dimly-lit backroom.

A pair of cloaked ninja seated at a make-shift poker table abruptly ceased their bickering when the diplomat and his new acquaintance entered the room. Sakura immediately checked her chakra, making sure it was sufficiently masked in the presence of this new, much more highly-trained company.

"Who's the chick?" The scrawny white-haired one asked matter-of-factly.

"This is Saaki — er, Satsuki. I want you to get a good look at her because she's not to be harmed during her stay here and you two are going to ensure that for me. Understood?"

"Whatever you say, bo — " The other figure at the table abruptly slammed her fist down and interrupted her white-haired counterpart before he could finish. "You people hired us to stage raids for Water's political gain, not to babysit some bimbo you're trying to impress!" The fuming kunoichi snapped.

"KARIN!" Both men silenced her instantly, with pointed gazes training towards a distracted-looking Sakura.

"What?! It's not like she's going to remember any of this tomorrow morning anyway judging by how drunk she is," Karin shot back.

"No. She knows too much now thanks to your big ugly mouth, Karin." The white-haired ninja appraised Sakura with a villainous smirk, revealing his shark-like grin in the process. "The girl stays with us 'til this is over."


	3. Chapter 3

'_Where the hell did she wander off to?' _Koneko angrily thought to herself as she surveyed the room again for her friend.

"So, I get off in 20 minutes if you wanna meet up after or something…" The bartender she'd been flirting with for the past fifteen minutes spoke up from behind her.

Koneko whipped back around to face him, suddenly cold and aloof. "Ugh, as if." She turned on her heel and walked in the general direction she'd last seen Satsuki, leaving behind a dumbstruck, now-sulking bartender in her wake.

Coming up empty in her scan of the cocktail lounge, the blonde cursed softly under her breath, deciding to risk blowing her cover with a quick chakra probe of the surrounding area.

She immediately zeroed in on the subtly guarded door towards the very back of the lounge, sensing significant chakra signatures emanating from just behind it. "Gotcha."

Turning to the nearest able-bodied patron, Koneko fanned herself, suddenly feeling very warm. "I- I think I'm going to faint," she managed to get out before dropping like a stone into the arms of a concerned onlooker.

In the background, the guard quietly observed the chaotic scene unfolding in the lounge before retreating into the backroom.

"What is it, Jūgo?" The Water advisor that Satsuki had disappeared with earlier demanded as the guard entered.

"There's been a commotion outside. It's the friend of that girl you were with. Where is she now, anyway?"

"You know better than to ask questions you needn't know the answers to," the older man snarled. "I'll go do damage control. You accompany Suigetsu to the hideout with his charge."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Sakura blinked heavily, but she still couldn't see clearly in her groggy, disoriented state. A lock of pink hair fell into her field of vision and she gasped, realizing her henge had dispelled when she'd evidently been knocked unconscious earlier. "Shit."

Turning her slowly-returning attention now to the uncomfortably cold, metallic feel of the wrist restraints holding her arms behind her back like a vice, Sakura flexed against them to test the strength of the material, only to find that her own strength was being vastly impeded by something. She tried again, to no avail.

As the unsettling prick of panic began to set in, Sakura suddenly became acutely aware that she wasn't alone in the room.

"Don't bother," a new voice emanated from the corner of the room, as if on cue.

Sakura froze. It was a voice she hadn't heard in years, and yet it was unmistakable. "Sasuke," she let escape in a barely audible whisper.

The same pair of menacing red eyes from the night before were suddenly boring into her own, glowing eerily from across the dark room. "You shouldn't be here," the voice growled, somehow managing to be wholly monotonous yet simultaneously reprimanding.

Regaining her composure, Sakura exhaled a short, incredulous breath. She wasn't about to be chided by him like they were genin all over again. "Well it's not like I had much of a choice in the matter, being kidnapped and brought al—"

"In the Land of Waves. What are you doing here," he interjected.

"That's frankly none of your business."

"Sakura…" he warned.

"I could ask you the same question!" She burst out, slamming her wrists against the restraints in another futile effort to break them.

Sasuke simply stared her down with those unwavering eyes, causing a chill to run across her body.

"They're chakra-restraining cuffs," he conceded, sighing. "My teammates had to take every precaution when your true identity was revealed."

"You're working for the Land of Water now!? How can you do this? You betrayed your own home— for what!? To start a proxy war between two nations you have no ties to?"

Hearing no reply to her monologue of questions, she lowered her voice to a venomous tone, "Your 'teammates' were right to incapacitate me. I tried to kill you once and failed. I won't make the same mistake twice."

Suddenly, he was right beside her, his lips just millimeters from her ear as he smugly asked, "Are you so sure about that?"

* * *

Koneko opened her eyes to three other faces staring down at her while another diligently fanned her from the side.

"She's awake! Oh, thank god," came a flurry of relieved sighs from around her. "You had us worried there for a minute! Are you okay?"

Koneko fought the urge to push them all aside and sprint out the door, instead opting for a hastily delivered, "Yes, fine. Sometimes I faint if I get overheated, is all." The man that had caught her fall helped her back to her feet. Koneko thanked him and excused herself to the ladies' room, quickly ducking out the back door when she was sure no one was watching.

The covert kunoichi knew exactly where to head, having mind-transferred into Jugo under cover of her fainting spell. All of the Godaime Hokage's worst fears had been confirmed by her just minutes prior.

Less than a day after Tsunade sent Sakura on her solo mission to the Land of Waves, new intel had been uncovered placing Sasuke Uchiha in roughly the same area, if it was accurate. Not wanting to take any chances, Tsunade sent Ino in after Sakura, undercover, to serve as backup if worst came to worst.

Ino's job was more-or-less to simply keep an eye on Sakura while she carried out her mission, blissfully unaware that her former teammate was potentially wreaking havoc nearby.

She mentally chastised herself for not being suspicious enough to link the Water advisor to Team Taka's whereabouts; '_I never should have let her out of my sight, dammit!' _

As much as Ino wanted to rush into the fold to save her best friend, she knew that her top priority was getting word of this dire turn of events to the Hokage. She also knew that Sakura could hold her own against nearly anyone that dared raise a hand against her nowadays, but Sasuke Uchiha was, unequivocally, the singular exception to that rule.


	4. Chapter 4

Sakura awoke to the faint thrumming of waves crashing against a rocky shore in the distance. The early morning air seeping in through a narrow, cracked window near the ceiling was cool and crisp against her face, but the rest of her was comfortably warm. Confused, she propped herself up off the hard floor as a light blanket slid from her shoulders to pool around her waist.

'Someone here must have a soft side to have given the hapless prisoner a blanket last night,' Sakura thought to herself sardonically. Her train of thought quickly devolved into contemplating whether that particular character flaw could be taken advantage of in order to facilitate her escape.

She highly doubted it was the kunoichi, Karin... or her shark-like counterpart, for that matter, solely based off of their vitriolic interaction the night prior. Sakura settled on the only other logical possibility, Jugo, the bodyguard. She hadn't seen him since they left the cocktail lounge last night, though.

A little voice in her head reminded her that there was a fourth member to Team Taka, but Sakura quickly dismissed the thought as ridiculous. In fact, she'd almost convinced herself that encountering Sasuke altogether last night was just another vivid nightmare when the door pushed open and abruptly shattered that theory.

Suddenly there were only brooding, obsidian eyes melting away the background of her surroundings until, without warning, they snapped away from her awestruck gaze.

"Good, you're awake," a deep, gravelly voice cut the saturated silence in the room like a knife.

Sakura just blinked, the image of Sasuke standing over her, bathed in the early morning light too much for her groggy mind to fully process. He was somehow even more beautiful than she remembered, almost deified by the halo effect the golden beam of light coming from the window made as he eclipsed it.

"Who else is on your mission squad?" He demanded, black eyes turning cold and accusatory as they once more bore into Sakura's wide green ones.

Sakura blinked again, coming back to her senses and finding herself in the midst of an interrogation. "My mission…? No one. I'm here on diplomatic pretenses. It doesn't concern you."

"Tch. Sakura, tell me who else is here from the Leaf."

"I told you, it's just me."

The rogue ninja stared into her eyes for a moment too long, and although they remained a cool charcoal, Sakura felt as though he was nevertheless peering directly inside her mind.

Seemingly satisfied as Sakura instinctively curled in upon herself, Sasuke turned on his heel to walk out the door, uttering an ominous "We'll see about that," as it clicked behind him, locking.

* * *

The next time her cell door clicked open, the sun was high in the cerulean sky, boiling the heavy, humid air outside before it oozed into the small room through the cracked window.

Jugo's wide frame slipped through the open door and quietly handed Sakura a glass of water that she accepted enthusiastically, nearly spilling it as she hastily brought it to her mouth to gulp half of it down before resting the cool glass against her sweaty temple, sighing in relief.

_"Sakura!"_

The overheated kunoichi's eyes snapped open to meet the uncharacteristically wide orange of Jugo's, as he crouched just inches from her. "It's me, Ino. We're going to get you out of here."

Sakura nearly choked on her water at the realization. "Ino?! But, how? I never got a chance to send a summons- what are you doing here?!" Sakura hissed softly, confused and now acutely afraid for her best friend's safety.

"It's a long story, but it doesn't matter right now. Listen to me, Sakura, I sent for reinforcements from the Leaf, but they won't get here until later this evening."

Sakura face twisted into one of forlorn consternation as she interrupted Ino's plans for escape with a solemn, "It won't work."

"Why the hell not?!" Ino, whisper-shouted at Sakura.

"These aren't just some bandits, Ino, it's Team Taka. It's Sasuke."

"I know that, forehead. How else would you have ended up captured," she added flippantly.

"No, you don't understand, Ino. They'll try to kill him!"

"Keep your voice down, Sakura! I'll make sure that doesn't happen." Ino chided, "Plus, it's not like they're going to send all of ANBU after him which is about what it'd take to have a fighting chance of killing the bastard."

Sakura looked around nervously before nodding meekly.

Taking her silence as agreement, Jugo quickly stood and exited the room as silently as he'd entered.

* * *

"Suigetsu."

"AH! Gods, Sasuke, what the hell?!" The startled ninja regained his composure to pointedly glare up into the branches of the large tree next to him. "Would it kill you to just stand in plain sight for once?" Suigetsu shouted in the direction of a cloaked figure perched in the dark upper branches.

Sasuke ignored his teammate's protests as he jumped down, lithely landing on his feet next to the still-irked ninja.

"Reconnaissance," he muttered. "We need to relocate."

"What? Why? Sasuke, I swear. You're too paranoid. You need to relax."

"We've been compromised. Reinforcements from the Leaf are probably en route already."

"Shit… It's that damn pink-haired bitch—" Suigetsu spat before abruptly choking on the end of his sentence as Sasuke's hand closed around his neck in a bloodthirsty flash.

"Don't talk about her like that." Sasuke's low voice was all acerbic venom as he nearly lifted Suigetsu off the ground by his throat, red eyes suddenly ablaze, black tomoe spinning with a promise of swift and excruciating retribution.

Suigetsu stammered out an apology before Sasuke seemed to all at once snap out of his homicidal state and back to his typically cool and calm demeanor, dropping the stunned ninja from his predatory grip like a hot potato and deactivating his sharingan.

There was a disconcerted pause before Sasuke broke the silence with a monotonous yet urgent order. "We need to move. Now." He abruptly stalked off into the distance, leaving a stunned Suigetsu in his wake to figure out what the fuck just happened. He off-handedly rubbed his neck as he made a mental note to not bring up their captive Leaf spy around Sasuke again.

* * *

Sakura took notice of the dimming sunlight turning the sky a fiery orange outside, wondering when Ino's reinforcements would be here, and if they would wait until the cover of darkness to infiltrate the hideout.

She closed her eyes and silently prayed that Sasuke wouldn't be here when they made their move.

Suddenly, the door flung open and she felt a singeing pain deep in her neck accompanied by a flash of red hair as the world around her slowly bled from dim beige and vibrant oranges to blurry crimson and, finally, to total darkness as her eyes fluttered shut involuntarily.


	5. Chapter 5

"Are you positive that this is the correct location? Perhaps you misinterpreted Beautiful's map."

"Yes, Sai, I am positive that this is exactly where Ino told us they were holding Sakura." Neji lowered his voice, solemnly adding, "The fact that it is deserted means we're most likely too late."

"How could the enemy have learned of our mission to retrieve Ugly this quickly? The execution was flawless. I don't understand."

"Have you forgotten who we're dealing with here? No one expected the elimination of Sasuke Uchiha to be an easy task," Neji chided.

"But that prerogative is secondary to the rescue of Ugly," Sai pressed, with as close to that of a worried expression as the emotionally-stunted former Root member could muster.

"It is still a mission prerogative, nonetheless." Neji quickly changed the subject, adding a commanding, "Let's go, before we're spotted by any scouts they may have left behind in anticipation of our arrival."

* * *

Sasuke surveyed Jugo under a crimson gaze, ensuring that it was really him this time. "Keep your guard up. She may not have been acting alone."

Jugo rubbed the back of his head, still trying to piece together his lapse in memory during which his consciousness had been overtaken by a spirited blonde girl that was less than half his size. He'd been caught completely off guard, easily overtaken by the harrowing technique that Sasuke identified as the Yamanaka clan's signature Mind Transfer Jutsu.

Satisfied that the rest of his team members were well and truly themselves, Sasuke turned to stalk back into their new hideout. "Karin, you're on high alert for any foreign chakra signature that comes within 5 klicks of this base."

Karin huffed, clearly annoyed, "Why did you even have me bring her here?! It would've made much more sense to just kill her and let Konoha take her back in a body bag."

The menacing glower she received from Sasuke in return effectively silenced her. Suigetsu shot Karin a smug _'Told you so'_ smirk and, although she began to visibly seethe, she kept her mouth firmly shut.

Sakura jolted back into consciousness with a start. It was darker, colder, and smelled faintly musty. "Not again," she whined, taking in her new surroundings as her eyes adjusted.

There was a decent-sized bed jutting out at a perpendicular angle from against the far wall of the windowless room. Two fire-lit sconces on the stone walls cast eerie, softly-dancing shadows across the floor. There were two doors, one tightly shut and the other half-open, leading to a sizable, surprisingly spa-like bathroom, from what she could see.

Sakura contemplated her situation. The last thing she remembered was getting injected with something that quickly knocked her out. She moved her palm to her neck in reaction. _'So much for Ino's grand rescue plan,'_ Sakura thought broodingly to herself, rubbing a no-longer-cuffed hand down her face as a searing headache began to kick in.

Realization hit her like a freight train and she jumped to her feet, whipping around excitedly to face the closed door. She slowly wound up, savoring the feel of her chakra once again at her full disposal, and delivered a brutal chakra-enhanced punch that instantly pulverized the door in its frame.

However, her fist stopped just short of breaching the threshold. Sakura slowly wilted into a ball on the cold stone floor, observing bitterly that the entire room was sealed inside an apparently-unbreakable barrier.

She was pacing like a caged animal when Sasuke suddenly appeared at the place in the wall that used to house a sturdy door. He blinked once, taking notice of the pile of finely strewn rubble extending backward into the hallway, outlining an impressive blast radius.

The corner of his mouth twitched upwards in an almost-imperceptible smirk at the sight. Sakura did a mental double-take, not totally comprehending what exactly her eyes just relayed to her brain.

Sasuke didn't give her time to recover, though, dryly quipping, "I see you're still just as feisty as you've always been."

Sakura audibly choked on her own breath, shooting Sasuke a look as though he'd sprouted another head. He smirked—this time she was sure of it—and turned on his heel to walk away with a smug, "Hn."

When he returned sometime later, Sakura was intent on leveling him with the most caustic scowl she could conjure, but her stomach clearly had other plans.

Sasuke released the barrier altogether before entering the room, one hand holding a lightly steaming bowl of something that smelled so delicious, it incited a sudden hunger pang in her side. It was severe enough to elicit a muffled grunt as she internally braced herself from nearly folding in half. It had been a while since she'd eaten anything substantive.

"Here. You need to eat."

Sakura eyed the bowl warily but accepted it.

Sasuke watched as she indulged in a few small sips, her big green eyes intently peeking over the rim of the bowl at him. He felt something stir in the pit of his stomach at the sight and quickly ripped his gaze away, snatching his backpack up and preoccupying his wandering mind with unpacking.

The kunoichi observed in growing confusion as Sasuke paced around the room, placing some neatly-folded clothing in a drawer, polishing a kunai before adding it to his small collection of weapons aligned tidily on a small side table, unrolling a sleeping mat and placing it on the opposite side of the room next to his bag.

She cocked an eyebrow at that. 'Is he… planning on also staying in this room? Surely there have to be plenty of other rooms in an underground fortress of this magnitude. Maybe he's assumed personal guard duty over me,' she thought sneeringly. 'I guess that's sort of flattering,' she admitted to herself, ''in a fucked-up kind of way.'

Sakura watched as Sasuke grabbed a towel and headed to the bathroom, black fringe covering his expression as the door clicked behind him. She heard the shower turn on and sat back, assessing her predicament.

Years ago, she would've been blushing violently at the thought of her crush in the shower just a few feet away from her. 'Not anymore,' she thought proudly to herself as she stood to stretch. The smirk on her face slid abruptly off as she caught a glimpse of her bright rosy cheeks in the mirror across the room. Inner Sakura sprouted heart eyes and stared longingly at the bathroom door.

Sakura smacked her hand to her forehead and rubbed her eyes annoyedly. "This cannot be happening. It's like I'm 12 again, _shanaroo_!"

She felt the overwhelming urge to run far away and fast. As she glanced over to the still-gaping hole in the wall, she noticed that Sasuke hadn't reinstated the barrier after he'd entered earlier.

Sakura stared at it in disbelief for a few moments. 'There's no way he would be that sloppy. Surely it's a trap...' She treaded quietly over to the small table holding Sasuke's collection of weapons and grabbed a kunai, hurling it through the breach and quickly crouching in anticipation of a violent explosion.

The kunai simply whizzed through the air and stuck firmly into the stone wall on the other side of the hallway with a sharp clang.

Sakura didn't have time to be surprised at Sasuke's carelessness as her feet were already propelling herself through the opening at a flat sprint. She skidded around the first corner in the hallway and smacked directly into something solid... and wet?

"Ow!" She yelped as she made contact with the offending object, then stiffened when she felt two large hands grip her sides.

The next moment, Sakura's back was pressed firmly against the stone wall, and she was looking up into two blazing red eyes with lazily spinning tomoe.

He spoke slowly when he opened his mouth, "Sakura, did I tell you you could leave?"

The trapped kunoichi could do little else than stare at his downturned mouth like a deer caught in headlights.

"Answer me," he growled out, forcing her to meet his threatening gaze head-on.

"N-no," she stammered out as his deep command sent a jolt of electricity coursing through her body.

Sasuke inadvertently tightened his grip on her waist as Sakura lightly shuddered and dropped her head to break their intense eye contact.

A drop of water landed on the tip of her nose and she remembered with a certain degree of distress that Sasuke had been in the middle of a shower when she'd made her escape.

Wide green eyes dropped lower, taking in the sinfully gratifying sight of Sasuke's bare chest and chiseled abs, white towel hanging dangerously low on his hips.

Sakura's gaze shot back up to fixate determinedly on his collarbone in an attempt to regain some semblance of composure.

"Don't... do that." Sasuke's voice was breathy against her forehead. She looked up at him, momentarily confused, and immediately regretted the decision when she saw the way he was looking at her.

The butterflies in Sakura's stomach took off all at once in a frantic swarm as she felt Sasuke's thumb slide to her bottom lip and slowly pull it down, out of the punishing grip of her teeth.

She hadn't even realized she'd been biting her lip.

Sasuke lowered his gaze to her plump lips and rubbed the pad of his thumb across the soft flesh there.

When his eyes flicked back up to catch her own again, the raw hunger in his gaze elicited a small noise from the back of her throat that she'd never heard herself make before.

Sakura bit down hard on her lip again in a desperate attempt to calm herself down as she felt something sticky begin to pool between her legs.

She watched with wide eyes as Sasuke slowly lowered his head and leisurely ran his tongue across her bottom lip. Then, without warning, he sucked on it, releasing her lip from the grasp of her own teeth with a wet pop.

"I told you not to bite your lip," he purred into her ear.

Sakura was positively sure that she was mere seconds away from fainting on the spot when Sasuke suddenly released her from his grip to saunter back to their room.

She followed him willingly.

* * *

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE WASN'T THERE?!"

Neji and Sai exchanged an uncomfortable glance towards one another as the full brunt of Ino's wrath rained down upon them. "The hideout was abandoned and entirely cleaned out when we got there," Neji elaborated, grimacing against the kunoichi's outburst.

"I saw her with my own two eyes! Well, I guess not _technically_ my _own_, but—she was there less than half a day before you got to her!" Ino blustered, incredulous. "I don't understand. How could they have known?! My technique was flawless!"

Sai dawned his quintessential fake smile and extended a stiff arm to gingerly pat Ino's shoulder, albeit a bit too mechanically for any real semblance of comfort. "It will be okay, Beautiful. I'm sure we will find Ugly eventually, wherever Traitor has taken her this time."

"Do you think she could have… tipped him off...? No, no that's crazy. She wouldn't have done that," Ino shook her head indignantly. "Never mind."

Neji seemed to mull the thought over in his sharp mind, then drop it. "It doesn't matter anyway. We have our orders."

Ino stabbed him with an icy glare at his inherent insinuation. "Sakura won't let you get anywhere near him if you're stupid enough to try it."

Neji merely averted his hard-set gaze, stubbornness dripping from his features.

"I'm serious, Neji. Our primary goal is to rescue Sakura and bring her back to Konoha—alone. Everything else is trivial as far as I'm concerned."

"Regardless, we do need to find them first. Sai, send the Hokage a message that we may need Kiba and Akamaru to assist our long-distance tracking capabilities."

"Hai."


End file.
